


daylight savings

by thebeespatella



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Biting, Blow Jobs, Cannibalism Puns, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s01e08 Fromage, First Time, Hannibal has Feelings, Hannibal is Hannibal, Light Masochism, M/M, Manipulative Hannibal, POV Hannibal, Porn With Plot, Will Graham swears a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6251749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeespatella/pseuds/thebeespatella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He’s getting close enough to tie the strings on Will’s wrists and ankles, and then, perhaps, under Hannibal’s marionette hand, he could be glorious...If Will resisted, disappointed—well. There is nothing wrong with a good demi-glacé.</i>
</p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div>A post-Fromage missing scene. Or: Hannibal sets a test. Will passes with all the colors of the wind. Cue shining eyes and Too Many Feelings. And porn. Always some porn.
            </blockquote>





	daylight savings

Hannibal stands for a moment, and, catching his breath, folds his pocket square to fit back into his suit jacket pocket. He matches the edges together precisely, ignoring the flinch of his fingers on the cloth, and limps back to examine the bodies.

Now, in stillness, he can better appreciate the ragged blasted hole in Tobias’s ear, blood clotting grisly and slow. He bends down, careful of his wounded leg and not to tamper with the scene in any undue way.

Yes. The odor of gunpowder, metallic and singed.

He closes his eyes and savors it: This wound may have been Will’s parting shot before succumbing to death— The last brutal bite of his mongoose. The wire is still bloody and coiled like a snake in Tobias’s fist. Strangled—yes, he can see it, Will’s eyes rolling up behind his glasses, hands frantic, frantic, reason disappearing as fast as air. No amount of training truly prepares a person for the wriggling panic of suffocation, Hannibal knows: Miriam Lass, and now Will Graham. Neither the first nor the last.

The resentment digs in like a splinter in his sternum. Tobias’s unworthy hands had _transformed_ Will into a corpse, and by rights, that should have proven Will just as unworthy. That was the test. But Hannibal can’t help but feel as though he’s missed something—a vague irritation like having forgotten your keys at home. He settles against the front of his desk, cradling his arm against his chest and holding his leg. Lets his head fall back, closes his eyes. After all, he has fifteen minutes, approximately, before the authorities come squealing and screeching to his office, so he adopts the appropriate attitude before he allows himself to contemplate.

Will had been remarkable from the first, with an aromatic tart keenness like a fresh succulent grapefruit. A matrix of walls and neuroses, living on a spider-silk web of tenuous reality—searching _feverishly_ for stability in his little boat on an ocean of barren fields. The matter of his lyrical labyrinth of a mind, every gray coil plastered with mirrors that fragmented under the weight of vision. In the center, they would have found the Minotaur’s bastard, an antlered half-beast, half-man, and beautiful beyond compare.

And Hannibal will always be unrepentantly vulnerable to beauty. Will’s form had matched his mind, enchanting in its inimitability, dressed roughly to hide its true shape and architecture. Elegant in its balance and honed for deadliness. So even under Jack Crawford’s watchful gaze, his eyes lingered on Will’s impatient figure, delightfully rude, jaw cut sharp with tension and redolent fear. That first morning in Minnesota, sleep-soft eyes and a softer mouth—palate impressionable to the nourishment Hannibal provided. It had been tempting to taste Will in one way, then the other.

He had cultivated Will for his own consumption, even _participation_ : Will’s private Ariadne. For the first time since—since _the cold_ —warmth had permeated the hoarfrost enough for Hannibal’s heart to yearn for light. Spring made sense for the first time. It would take work for it to freeze over again, and he lamented the effort.

Of course, Will Graham would still have been vulnerable to the oven and a little demi-glacé, despite the jeweled texture of his dreams, if only for indulgence’s sake: After all, Hannibal lives in an orchard. He’s getting close enough to tie the strings on Will’s wrists and ankles, and then, perhaps, under Hannibal’s marionette hand, he could be glorious.

And bearing that light subtle cross had been elemental inevitability. People are inevitably turned to elements when they tangle with Hannibal. If Will resisted, disappointed—well. There is nothing wrong with a good demi-glacé.

However. The strings had gotten tangled last night. It’s a rueful probability that Hannibal has come to accept, that fate and circumstance will not operate under his supervision.

Perhaps it had been impulsive. Like the oft-spurned Hera, he’d laid a snare baited with justice. (The imagining of Will kissing Alana, sharing a palate in the most literal way still smarts in his sternum.) He vaguely remembers talking to Bedelia about worthiness, that haziness of recall being the glory of therapy, but he hadn’t been after some pissant’s dogfight. Spectacle and theater are not the same; thus such an uncouth display was of no interest to him, for the sheer banality of it. Cruelty is neither vulgar nor victory: it’s a simple pressure that informs the tilt of the Earth’s axis.

But he had needed to _know_. And now in a perverse twist, the Minotaur’s child would be forever silenced by the most contemptible iteration of Theseus, lying with a hole in his ear on the floor of Hannibal’s office. And he knows.

The light from his large windows filters through his eyelids, bright, dusty, like the foyer of the Norman Chapel. He sits, and meditates on repentance. He wishes he could have watched Will fight for his life. How richly the air must have reeked with desperation, which is almost as exquisite as despair.

&

The FBI indeed arrives almost exactly fifteen minutes later, tires screeching hysterically, and Hannibal has to retreat from the chapel back to the immediate. Agents kick his door open, shouting with their guns drawn, eyes slowly drawn to the only thing breathing in the room, Hannibal, collapsed against the desk. He had not been hooked up to the machines but he was not dead. His pulse is taken hurriedly as the other agents examine the bodies.

“He’s alive—call a bus.”

“Where’s Crawford?”

“Dr. Lecter? Dr. Lecter?”

The agent is shaking his shoulder lightly, and Hannibal looks up to meet her eyes. It would be very easy to pull her arm from its socket. “I’m Agent Hannah Jacobsen.”

“I am—injured,” he says. “But have not lost a lot of blood. I have moved as little as possible.”

She nods. “All right. We’ve got an ambulance coming, but can you tell me what happened?”

Hannibal surveys the scene, the swarming onset of personnel crossing the illustration. It could not be more precise had he put pencil to paper himself.

She mistakes his silence for trauma. That _hand_ is back on his body. “Take your time.”

The weaker the better, so he drops his eyes and takes an ostentatious breath. “I—I was in a session with my patient. Then that man—Tobias, I think—burst into the room. He and my patient were friends. Tobias said that he had killed two men, and my patient panicked. I attempted to call the police, but he snapped my patient’s neck and then attacked me.”

Hannibal pauses. The agent is sitting on the agitated impulse to comfort him. She is possibly new, or accustomed to working with victims of sexual crimes. He feels the brief clutch of disdain—sex crimes are so deplorably clichéd. Nothing but a trite tale of inadequacy and abuse and a lack of control, making killing seem like nothing short of advanced pornography to the general public. If only they could see.

“And then?” she prompts softly. It would be so easy to unhinge her jaw.

“And I defended myself as best I could,” Hannibal says. “He used the piano wire to attempt to strangle me. His arm got caught in the ladder, and he broke his arm. As we struggled, he backed into the stand, and the sculpture fell on him.” Another heaving sigh. “I am extraordinarily lucky. I only regret that I could not do more for Franklyn.”

“Franklyn?”

“Ah—my patient. I suppose confidentiality is moot now.”

She smiles at him, tight-lipped and sympathetic. “Thank you, Dr. Lecter. A paramedic will be with you shortly. Do you need…?”

“No, thank you.”

She helps him to his feet anyway, and so he sits in his office chair to take in the chaos. Forensics teams in their baggy jackets, the harsh crack of flashing shutters and small clouds of print dust onstage. He would have to hire a cleaning service later; surely, whatever Jack would half-heartedly offer would be inadequate. The stench of forensic chemicals would linger like sour tannin.

The noise of the active crime scene fades to a buzz in the background, and Hannibal allows himself to slump forward a little, the ache of physicality slamming into him all at once. Every blow—even the side of his hand where he’d struck the final wheezing gasp into Tobias’s throat—burns with the memory of hurts exchanged. He will be bruised and mottled, and it will be worse in the morning. An EMT rushes over and does a passable job of examining him, rolling soft gauze over his forearm where the wire had cut through the sleeve (he mourned the shredded cloth), and the stab wound in his calf as well. The smell of antiseptic is a terrible substitute for smelling salts.

Really, a long bath would be best.

But then Jack strides into the room, all business and no humor. His eyes are tired. Miriam Lass and Will Graham. Not the first, and not the last. Hannibal sits up a little straighter, readying himself to retell the story—then—

Will Graham walks into his office.

It is no trick of the light. He is no longer in the chapel, surrounded by dusty votives and death graven in the floor. Will is breathing and nervous and quick, eyes flicking over every detail in the room, as observant as ever. He isn’t wearing his glasses. Seeing him there unlocks some secret cavern in Hannibal’s chest and his being floods as surely as God flooded the Earth, cleansing him of every doubt and crafting a new covenant from the remains. He cannot help the sound that escapes him at the surrender.

Will shifts course immediately to go to Hannibal, standing like he doesn’t know what to do with his bruised and bloody hands.

Hannibal can only look up at him, parched for words. “I was worried you were dead,” he says.

 _I needn’t have been._ How could he have ever doubted his Will? Clever, remarkable, beautiful boy—and now how ardently he wishes he could have watched him. Surely he was savage in his grace. The fleeting nature of time and existence betrays him into soft wistfulness.

Jack comes to hover over the both of them, and starts brusquely, no preamble. “So Tobias Budge kills two Baltimore police officers, nearly kills an FBI Special Agent, and after all that, his first stop is here, at your office.”

“He came to kill my patient,” Hannibal says, and casts a glance at the set of body bags on his floor. He can detect the suspicion in the undertow, and it prickles along his scalp.

“Your patient. Is that who Budge was serenading?” Will asks. A foil for a foil, providing Hannibal with more than adequate cover.

“I don’t know.” He breathes in, feeling his pulse hammer higher than it had when Tobias had him in the deadly loops of wire. He can still smell gunpowder. “Franklyn knew more than what he was telling me. He told Mr. Budge that he didn’t have to kill anymore.” He exhales the gentle scent, reluctant to have to let it go. “And then he broke Franklyn’s neck, and then he attacked me.”

When in doubt, blame the dead. Their only rebuttal is silence.

“You killed him?” Jack says. The prickle is back.

So Hannibal does his best impression of fear and breathes, “Yes.”

“Could Franklyn have been involved in whatever Budge was doing?”

 _Participation._ Beauty is symmetry, and Hannibal luxuriates in the mirror.

His mouth has to bend into a smile at that. “I thought this was a simple matter of poor choice in friends.”

“This doesn’t feel simple to me.” Jack stalks off into the noise.

It doesn’t matter. There is only one person Hannibal can observe in perfect clarity. Will hesitates a moment before leaning on Hannibal’s desk, drawing closer, tilting his head in a quick thoughtless attempt to catch Hannibal’s eyes. His hand is bandaged, and Hannibal wants to see the wound. He relishes the sound of battered vocal cords as Will says, slowly, “I feel like I’ve dragged you into my world.”

Compassion is resolutely inconvenient, sticking like burrs in lamb’s wool, but Will wears it constantly despite the discomfort. It is not only his mind that flies wide open, but also the cavity of his chest, organs inviting and absorbing the pain of others. Hannibal had thought it a weakness to exploit. Now he basks in its warmth, chasing the cold to a deeper, darker room.

“Ah, I got here on my own,” he says, then looks up. And Will does not flinch away, not like that first meeting—no, they are light years departed from the past. “But I appreciate the company.”

Will smiles, that ironic little twist of his lips, and flicks his head to look behind him. “Now that Jack is satisfied,” he says, “You should go home. Today has been—”

“Absurd,” Hannibal agrees, and goes to stand. He cannot help but lean in, take in that awful aftershave that sits in his nose like so much sand. But underneath sits the smell of adrenaline, sweet and dark like blackcurrant syrup.

Will catches the waver in his stance. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Out of obligation?”

“Only personal obligation,” Will says, “because I’m personally obliged.”

They walk out together, carefully stepping through the office. His doors feel heavier than usual when Will holds them open for him.

“My car,” Will says as they go to the parking spaces. “Because I’m scared of yours. Jack will take care of it.”

Will opens the passenger door first, and cranks the seat back to accommodate his longer legs. “There. Should be comfortable enough.”

Will sits and the car stutters to life, nothing like the predatory purr of his own car. The radio is set to static, probably unintentional. “All right,” Will says, looking over at him. “Home?”

“Home,” says Hannibal, but he can’t help feel that it’s a little redundant.

&

The drive home is quivering and silent. Will keeps looking over at him, as they slow at four way stops, at crosswalks, when he checks before he makes a turn, smooth and sharp. Hannibal finds himself averting his gaze, unwilling to play, for once. _Concern_ feels like too much donut-glaze and not enough water. Cloying up to the sinuses.

Hannibal observes. Will drives in that comfortable well-wrung way exclusive to non-urban Americans: one-handed grip on the steering wheel almost an artifact. Hannibal is safe, even as they are pitched forward with a short steep screech of the brake, resuming easy speed within moments.

“Make a fuckin’ decision,” Will mutters. “Christ, what an idiot.”

Hannibal smiles despite himself. It re-opens the cut in his lip. He wonders if Will is aware—despite all of his accomplishments, making it all the way to the F.B.I., that sometimes he drops his guard on his enunciation and his curses lilt, probably in an encore of what he remembers from the cab of his dad’s old pick-up.

“These _people_ ,” Will continues, gesturing at the expanse of highway, “are a bunch of—Sunday drivers. Commute into D.C. the whole week, then want to take the Beemer for a spin with the family on the weekend. Just—no fuckin’ clue what they’re doing. Like that.” He points at a big black car, indeed a BMW, as they pass. “What’s he trying to do? He's either gonna merge or kill somebody. Couldn't tell his ass from a hole in the ground.”

“I had no idea you were so susceptible to road rage,” Hannibal says.

Will rolls his shoulders, to shrug, release the tension in his muscles. “I’m not _enraged_. I’m fine. People here are just idiots.”

The car glides to the exit. The car is old, but the fire extinguisher has recently been replaced. There is the distinct smell of dog and manila folders. The rhythm is soothing, the _whirr-hum_ of the wheels, _hiss clack clack_ of the clutch and gearshift, brisk ticking of the turn signal.

Will takes the same streets as Hannibal does every night; probably because he’s familiar with the area, although after Tobias Budge had admitted to following him out to the farm, suspicion prickles at Hannibal’s consciousness like a crown of thorns. Paranoia can feel like a halo of pain, especially when faced with a newfound rift in certainty. It feels like drifting through the theory of relativity. He’s not in shock; he’s shocked, and there is nothing worse than being caught off-guard.

Except for rudeness, of course.

But they do, finally, inevitably arrive, and Will parks with more caution than necessary, leaving generous space for Hannibal to swing his legs out of the car. He carries Hannibal’s coat and briefcase for him, holding onto them even as Hannibal motions for his coat so he can fish out his keys. The heavy click of the lock, and they walk into the hush of Hannibal’s home. The sun is setting, so Hannibal only turns on his lamps, warm and low to keep them both at ease.

Will has been to his home before, to give Hannibal a bottle of wine that had been carefully stored to be coveted continually by Hannibal’s eyes alone, and then, of course, to fling his coat on the settee and declare that he’d kissed Alana Bloom. Hannibal sniffs at the fresh memory.

He walks stiffly into the kitchen, removing his jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair, rolling up his sleeves carefully with bruised fingers. He washes his hands, paying special attention to the space beneath his nails. He can still feel the soft give of Franklyn’s chin in his palm as he dries his hands on a soft cotton dishcloth, hanging it on his shoulder out of habit.

He turns around to see Will still standing in his living room, shifting from foot to foot, still holding his coat and briefcase, and has to suppress an indulgent smile. “Will, please. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Where—?”

“On the settee should do.”

Will puts his things down and immediately goes to Hannibal’s side. “Is there anything I can do? Are you in pain?”

Hannibal presses his tongue behind his teeth. He can’t risk Will opening the freezer—there is still some pork-to-be that’s too close to its original form. “Yes,” he says, “and yes. I appreciate the offer. In the bathroom down the hall, you will find a medicine cabinet. There is a small octagonal jar in the bottom right-hand corner. If you could please bring it to me.”

Will rushes down the hallway and Hannibal limps to the crystal cabinet. His fingertips brush the swollen bellies of the pinot noir glasses; he decides against it and pulls down two whiskey tumblers instead. He peruses and selects a whiskey, then limps back to the sitting room to put it all on the ebony coffee table. He sinks into the sofa with relief. He stares at the whiskey as Will noisily rummages in his bathroom down the hall, contemplates a decanter and coasters, then lets his head fall back against the couch instead, closing his eyes.

In the dark, he can catalogue every bruise, every cut. There’s a place where his tooth had snagged on the inside of his cheek that will be intrusive for a while; citrus and hard alcohol will come with a sting. His ribs ache, and although he is confident there are no fractures, he certainly can feel every hour of sitting across from one patient or another. It doesn’t do to be sedentary. He stretches his hands just to feel the sharp sparks of pain, and almost smiles. There’s nothing more refreshing than a zealous reminder of mortality.

“Hannibal?” Will’s voice is cautious, and he opens his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says, sitting up.

“Sorry. Were you asleep?”

“I was merely resting my eyes. A drink?”

“Yes.”

Will sits down next to him, unscrews the cap of the small jar in his hand and sniffs it. He is still wearing his coat, glasses tucked haphazardly into the breast pocket. “What is this stuff?”

“Tiger balm,” Hannibal answers. “It is an ointment of early Chinese origin, although it was popularized in the 1870s in Southeast Asia.”

“It doesn’t have—tiger parts in it, does it?”

Hannibal laughs, gusting, teeth on display, surprising them both. “No,” he says. “It’s completely herbal, I assure you. It’s used to treat bruises, inflammation, muscle aches.”

“Of course you don’t just have IcyHot,” Will mutters, and exchanges the tiger balm for a glass of whiskey, which he cradles in two hands for a moment.

Hannibal takes a slow sip of his own drink. It’s a full and warm forest. Will follows suit, head tilting as he contemplates the flavor.

“This is—different. Cleaner.”

“ _Hibiki_ ,” Hannibal says. “A Japanese whiskey. Not traditional, perhaps, but I never let tradition get in the way of taste.”

Will takes another swallow, and goes back to staring at his knees.

Hannibal watches him. When he’d stridden into Hannibal’s office, tall and strong and alive, he’d walked with certainty. Now, he was resuming his old posture, trying to fold into himself, as though the curve of his shoulders could shield his uncertainty from Hannibal’s eyes. Making a nest of his worries and holding them gingerly within.

“Will,” Hannibal says. His voice is clearer than his mind. “Thank you.”

Will looks up at that, eyes narrowed, and he bares his teeth in what passes for a half-smile. “For what?” he says. “If anything, I should be thanking you. You took a risk, tipping us off. And _you_ caught him.”

“I killed him.”

“You killed him like you killed your patients in the ER, Hannibal,” Will says flatly. “It was self-defense. I mean—your patient’s neck was snapped clean. He didn’t have a chance, but you fought anyway. You were—brave.” He takes a deep even breath but does not continue, looking defiantly at Hannibal’s chin. Close enough, for now.

“If we are to speak of bravery—I confronted him by necessity,” Hannibal says. “You confronted him by choice.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“It is not, technically, your job.”

“Two officers died because I—”

Hannibal stills himself; waits.

“Because I heard something,” Will says, and his shoulders curl in further. “I heard—a car, and an animal, and I ran outside. If I’d been there—”

“Then you might also be dead,” says Hannibal. “And so I have never been gladder for a hallucination in my life.”

“I guess it was well-timed,” Will says, lips twitching. “But shouldn’t you be more concerned about my condition, Dr. Lecter?”

“Fate and circumstance have brought us to this moment, Will,” Hannibal says. “And they are mercurial things. No good has ever come from tampering with them.”

Will looks at him then, and Hannibal almost feels seen—at least to the extent he’s allowed, and it’s a heady rush of warm pleasure. He tightens his grip on his glass to ride it through.

Something has shifted. It is now safer to feel the chasm, to admit to more than being _worried_ , to hear the scream of the sudden void he’d felt at the sight of Budge walking through his office door, alone, and hear the echo bounce back a thousand shuddering times. “Will,” he says. Vulnerability is a vicious tool when applied correctly, but he feels no need to create a facsimile. His throat is dry; his eyes are exhausted and still haunted.

The air is thick like the anticipation of lightning.

“I almost didn’t walk into your office,” Will says, and sets his glass on the table. It makes a solid noise compared to the husk of his voice. His eyes are incisive. His lips are slightly parted, and the curve of his neck is particularly stark in the light. “Couldn’t bear to have to _look_ , like it was just another crime scene. Budge was dangerous. If he had—if you—” He sets his jaw tight, swallows loudly and it sounds like catgut. “I was—afraid.”

Hannibal lowers his head in assent, bangs falling into his eyes. It isn’t so often that he encounters doors into parallel universes, out from one world into another of decisions. And here—Frost himself could not have endured the split in the yellow wood that Hannibal faces now.

For the feeling aches, he almost feels nauseated with it. The small iron fist embedded in the cold is not equipped for the flood, and the tide has only risen. His own breath sounds only like a rehearsal. “I killed him,” Hannibal says, whisper detonating in the air between them, “because I thought he killed you.”

He’s falling off a cliff, accelerating toward the dark sea of the unknown. He wonders if Will is with him.

He waits and Will turns, angling his body slowly—not out of hesitation, but with intent, telegraphing his next move. (Giving Hannibal time. The burrs prick at his flesh.) He leans forward—puts a warm, rough hand on Hannibal’s cheek—Hannibal wonders which classic movies guide his movements before Will kisses him. Soft, slow, sweet, burning with blood and whiskey and relief.

There is almost nothing Hannibal enjoys more than learning, so he delights in cataloguing the firm press of his lips (damp, clinging), the stroke of Will’s thumb beneath his eye, each movement broadcasting tranquil confidence, almost placid, but Hannibal can taste the salt of the ocean roiling underneath.

They part slowly.

“Making a habit of kissing your psychiatrist friends, Will?”

Will ducks his head on a harsh laugh, but meets Hannibal’s eyes nonetheless when he says, “Depends. Is it a two-for with rejection?”

His hand is still on Hannibal’s face. He turns his cheek into Will’s palm to press his lips to it. “Alana is much stronger than I,” he says against warm, clean skin. He resents the flavor of her name in their shared air. “I could not reject you if I tried.”

“Are you trying?” Will asks, but does not pull back. “She’s right, there are a million reasons—”

“Today has brought me nothing if not clarity, Will,” he says, the secret unfurling over his the cut in his mouth. “And I have wanted—from the beginning. If—if I am not found wanting.”

“Well, I guess I was never your patient.”

Hannibal makes an attempt at demure; folds the dishcloth neatly to put on the table. “We were, after all, only having conversations.”

He’s prepared for the depth and vigor of the kiss, but not for how gently Will presses closer, careful of his leg and arm. It only inflames him, and he curls both hands in the lapels of Will’s coat and wrenches it down his shoulders in a brisk move, tossing it on the floor.

“Sure you don’t want it on the _settee_?” Will murmurs, and Hannibal gives him a taciturn look but cannot maintain it as Will grins more broadly. He kisses one corner of Will’s smile, then the other, licking against his full lip and the edge of his teeth, hands sliding slowly up the firm plane of Will’s chest.

He can feel the furious, persistent squeeze of the chambers of Will’s heart through muscle, through bone, through skin. It is exuberantly soothing to feel the mechanics of this exquisite instrument, the blue static shock of Will’s living flesh. Hannibal shifts closer, looping his arms around Will’s waist, slipping in his tongue to explore—a soft tickle along the roof of his mouth, to taste. Will’s arms slide over the firm breadth of Hannibal’s shoulders, hands tangling in his hair. Still temperate, restrained, watching for winces. Mutual discovery and composition as their thighs press together, Hannibal impatient with the deliberate pace of devouring.

“I promise you,” he says against Will’s mouth, “I will not break.”

“He hurt you,” Will says. “I can’t make it worse.”

“No,” Hannibal reassures. “You cannot.”

Will shows the first hint of shyness, a sunset blush high on his cheeks. Hannibal has to kiss it away, lips gentle on human flesh for the first time in many years. He swings his leg over to sit heavily on Will’s lap, eliciting a gasp that he gladly inhales. Their fingers meet and fumble over the buttons of his waistcoat, taking longer combined but unwilling to untouch for longer than necessary. Hannibal leans to take Will’s pulse under his mouth, tasting salt and feeling the live thrum with his lips, then the vibrato of the low sound that leaves Will’s mouth, deep and slow, like the draw of a bow across a cello.

He moves upward, nosing along the stubbled jaw, then takes the lobe of his ear into his mouth, feeling the skin stretch under his teeth, smiling as he feels Will shudder below him and press closer, fingers dipping below the starched collar of his shirt. Hannibal rolls his hips, pleased to feel a slight hardness as he pushes into Will’s groin. He pulls Will’s shirt free from his pants so he can brush at the skin underneath. His years teaching have left him softer around the middle, but Hannibal’s brow twitches in irritation when he can still feel a slight gauntness about the ribs.

 _Soft eyes and a softer mouth_. Oh, but how he would nourish Will, as Will had nourished him with the very sight of him. His hands are nimble as they undo buttons, trailing the creamy skin with the pads of his fingers. He flicks deliberately at one nipple, and then the other, gauging for sensitivity, then he applies his mouth.

“Ah—!” Will’s arches his back in a quick spasm; his exhale comes in ripples and Hannibal follows the movement down to slip to his knees. The crystal on the table behind him rings as it is jostled. He undoes Will’s belt (snap of braided leather, jangle of metal), and tugs with distinct inelegance until Will’s pants are around his knees. His hands savor the expanse of his thighs, and he licks along the stern tendon only to press a sudden livid bite against skin. He punches in his teeth and tastes the meniscus fragility.

“ _Hannibal._ ” It’s distinctly a noise of pain, and perhaps alarm, and his hands scramble to fist wrinkles into Hannibal’s shirt. His cock twitches into full hardness.

Hannibal smiles.

The bite is blooming red and bright with the indentations of his teeth. It will bruise. He soothes it with his tongue, presses soft suckling kisses higher and higher. Will’s fingers feel blunt through his shirt, and he can feel their short tremble, and a drop of clear viscous wetness is welling at the head, heavy like a tear. Tasting is always an experience, and so he revels—rubs to feel it slippery across his lips, tongue flicking out to gather it in his mouth. A salt tang, like the watery bed of a Chesapeake oyster, a velvet bitterness like herbs grown in the dark.

When he opens his eyes, Will is staring down at him. “Han—” he begins, but it’s interrupted by an inexorable moan as Hannibal sucks the rest of his cock into his mouth. He has to circle air in harshly through his nose as it wedges into the back of his throat, but the way Will’s abdomen jolts and his jaw goes slack are so gratifying he rumbles with the pleasure of it. Taste is mostly smell, after all. He grips the backs of Will’s knees for leverage and bobs his head. It is silent except for the obscene slick sound of suction and saliva, punctuated by Will’s heavy breathing. He can’t stop looking up and for once Will meets his eyes continuously, hand sliding to cup under his chin. Hannibal can only press into the touch to ensure Will can feel the bulge his cock is making in his throat.

Will’s hand spasms on his throat once, again when Hannibal digs his nails into the tender skin. “God—Hannibal—”

Hannibal ignores him, drives him harder. He curls his tongue back so the silky underside brushes against every ridge. Will’s hand is warm and loose against his neck and he wants to see the fire diamond that lights behind his eyes when Hannibal had clawed him, when he steps into the mind of a killer, when he’d fought for his life. He can see the shift of muscle beneath the open flaps of Will’s shirt, darkened with sweat, and the black of his pupils blown like in seizure and wants, wants, wants. “So good,” Will pants. “And— _fuck_ —it’s like you _like_ this.”

Hannibal can only hum in agreement.

“So touch yourself,” Will says, and moves his hand to push Hannibal back gently so only the head of his dick rests on his tongue. Will nods, chest still expanding with grand gulps of air. “Come on. I want to see you.” And Hannibal had ignored his own desire outside of flame and feasting, until he feels Will nudge his erection with his foot. Paired with the tender way he pushes Hannibal’s hair off his forehead, backlit and haloed in the lamplight—Hannibal cannot resist, and the collapse is brusque and immediate.

He doesn’t bother with taking anything the whole way off, just twisting enough that he can grip his own leaking cock in a too-tight grip just as he takes Will back into his throat. The way Will’s voice peaks high from under his hyoid bone as he throws his head back, almost violently—

“Ah— _please—_ ”

This is his arrangement. His discovery. His symphony in synchrony. Hannibal pushes forward then fights for air as Will’s hips jump erratic; asphyxia his indulgence in pursuit of control. On a sharp thrust, it feels like his throat has been punched from the inside—and for the first time—he chokes—

Will comes soundlessly on the noise. His mouth open and his eyes closed in ecstasy. His entire body bends forward, bowing in glowing marble relief. Hannibal swallows convulsively, greedy for every part of Will; even his insides are not inside enough. His hands clench unwittingly in Hannibal’s hair, jerking his head back, and it feels like whiplash—

Hannibal must let go of Will then, turning his head to rest on Will’s bony knee, mouth wide open and guttural, dripping with semen and spit—as he spills himself in hand, scalp tingling.

They both sit in breathing repose, catching their wits and their breath. After a moment, the wood feels like it’s boring into Hannibal’s knees, so he swipes the dishcloth from the table to wipe and tuck himself back in, then hands it to Will, not bothering to zip up his trousers as he lifts himself up onto the couch.

Will winces at the great cracking of Hannibal’s joints. “I’m sorry,” he says. “We could have moved.”

“I would have moved if it suited me.”

“Yeah, you would’ve. Still.”

Hannibal lets himself sag against the solid place where Will’s arm meets his shoulder, picking up a whiskey glass and sipping at it, then proffering it to Will. It’s like a burning sorbet, but he can’t help but observe how the flavors mingle and meld. Will tugs Hannibal into a firmer embrace, and drops a kiss on his temple. The motions are unrehearsed because there is no performance with him.

“Thank you,” Hannibal says.

He can feel Will’s smile against his cheekbone. “For what? There are a million guys who would kill for you to blow them. And they’re probably not hallucinating a mile a minute. Speaking of, I hope this is real, because—”

“Will. We will continue to treat your symptoms. And,” he says, with a sniff, “I don’t want to _blow a million guys._ ”

Will’s smile only splits wider. “Oh, live a little, Dr. Lecter.”

He can’t conceal the lazy shudder that rolls through him at the way Will’s tongue curls around his title. “I feel the most alive than I have in some time.”

“I didn’t mean—”

Hannibal takes one hand, then the other. Will’s knuckles are bruised and torn with battle, and Hannibal presses his mouth to each abrasion. The hint of his blood is iron blackcurrant and he still wants, wants to scrape the scabs off with his teeth. Instead he laces their fingers together.

Infinite quiet streams, all running narrow and parallel to each other. In some version of the existent world, they are not lain together like this, perhaps Will in Wolf Trap, with his dogs, Hannibal in the kitchen. There is probably whiskey involved in most possible versions. But he cannot imagine that their lives never touch—that their planets are not aligned for some long thunderous collide. That their antlers never lock in a thicket of fear and beauty. That the Minotaur’s child stays quietly locked away, never stirring to listen to the tuning fork of Hannibal’s voice and roar in magnificent harmony.

“I’ll clean up,” Will says.

Hannibal nods but doesn’t get up, finding an easiness in being an anchor rather than an oar.

**Author's Note:**

> I did _not_ write this in honor of daylight savings. It's the worst.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Evening Indulgence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889429) by [clicktrack_heart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clicktrack_heart/pseuds/clicktrack_heart)




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